EBR Training at the MeGAdget Store

EBR Training at the MeGAdget Store

The scene: it’s 6:00 AM inside MeGAdget, a big box consumer electronics store. Seasonal employees, hired to help out during the busy holidays, are getting product knowledge training. Kenny, an experienced Junior Second Key Customer Service Sales Supporter Pal, takes them from department to department, giving them an overview of what is sold. This is a piece of fiction and humor…no connection is suggested with the French website, Megadget…the capitalization is different. ;)

Kenny: Okay, over here we have the e-book readers, also called EBRs. As you can see, they all look pretty similar. It’s important that you use the proper names properly. It can be confusing, but the names all make sense. You just have to come up with the proper associations…the right mental images that let you remember which is which. Millions of dollars go into name research…it’s should be easy to get them right. It’s like our name: MeGAdget. When you see that, what do you think of right away?

Kenny: Actually…um…Ella, it’s “Mega” and “Gadget”. We’re a really big store, and we sell gadgets. That’s why the letters “G” and “A” are both capitalized…MeGA GAdget.

Ella: Oh, I get it! We sell Lady Gaga in the music section! We’re the MeGAGAdget store!

Kenny: No, no. There’s only one “GA”. We don’t have two “GA”s. It’s just one “GA”. Got it?

Ella: Sure, I got it. Or should I say, “Gaga it?”

Kenny: Very funny…everybody’s a comedian. Look, Ella, this is serious business. People come here to give us their hard-earned money. People out there are struggling…struggling, do you hear me? They have to scrape up every penny from their part-time jobs to be able to buy that flatscreen! Do you not want to be prepared to tell them how to spend their money?

Ella: No. I mean, yes. Why did you have to say it like that? “Do you not…?” Who talks like that?

Kenny: Do you want to be a Customer Service Sales Supporter Pal?

Ella: Yes, sir!

Kenny: All right, then. Then prove it…all you have to do is pay attention to what I tell you, make the proper mental associations, and you’ll be fine.

Ella: I’ll do my best.

Kenny: Let’s get started. What did I say these gadgets are called?

Ella: E-books.

Kenny: No, e-book readers.

Ella: That’s not an e-book?

Kenny: No, the e-books are the books you read on it.

Ella: I read books on it?

Kenny: E-books, yes.

Ella: Does that make me an e-book reader?

Kenny: Are you trying to be funny?

Ella: You’re the one that’s trying to tell me I’m a gadget.

Kenny: I did not say that!

Ella: You said that’s an e-book reader. Then you said I read e-books, which make me an e-book reader. Ergo, I’m an e-book reader. Or should that be “ere-GOGO?”

Kenny: This an e-book reader. You are an e-book reader reader.

Ella: That’s easy…I’ll try to be a good rememberer.

Kenny: That’s enough of that! These devices over here all come from Amazon.

Ella: They come from the Amazon?

Kenny: Not “The Amazon”. Just “Amazon”.

Ella: Is that spelled like the river?

Kenny: Yes. Here’s their latest. It does streaming video.

Ella: Oh, I get it! A stream is like a river, so that’s why it’s named after the Amazon.

Kenny: Actually, this one isn’t named “Amazon”. It’s called the “Kindle Fire“.

Ella: But I already made the mental association between the Amazon and a stream.

Kenny: Unmake it. Amazon puts out the Fire.

Ella: Of course Amazon puts out the Fire. That’s a lot of water. You can put out a fire with just a little bucket…you don’t need a big giant river.

Kenny: Stop that! The company Amazon sells the Kindle Fire.

Ella: I like “puts out the fire” better…I can remember that.

Kenny: Fine, fine…whatever works for you.

Ella: Let me make sure I have this. The Amazon is a river, but the one that streams, which is like a river, isn’t called the river, but it’s called the Fire, and then Amazon puts out the Fire.

Kenny: Almost right. It’s called the Kindle Fire.

Ella: Is it called the “Kindle” Fire because of all the wood in the Amazon rainforest?

Kenny: Um…it’s called the Fire because it came after the Kindle. You use kindling to make a fire.

Ella: And then a river puts it out…got it. What’s that little one?

Kenny: That’s the Kindle.

Ella: I thought the other one was the Kindle.

Kenny: No, the other one is the Kindle Fire. This one is just the Kindle.

Ella: It’s not on fire?

Kenny: No.

Ella; So, the Kindle Fire was introduced after the Kindle?

Kenny: These two were introduced on the same day, but Amazon has been putting out Kindles since 2007.

Ella: If they put out the Kindles, how did they ever get a fire?

Kenny: Amazon has been making Kindles since 2007.

Ella: So Amazon has been making the Kindle Fire since 2007.

Kenny: No, I told you it was new. Haven’t you been listening?

Ella: Yes. You told me that the Kindle and the Kindle Fire were introduced on the same day, and that the Kindle was released in 2007.

Kenny: Not this Kindle.

Ella: Which Kindle?

Kenny: The Kindle.

Ella: I thought the little one was the Kindle.

Kenny: It is. So was the first one they introduced in 2007.

Ella; But they aren’t the same?

Kenny: No, this is a much more advanced device.

Ella: It does more?

Kenny: Actually, it does less. But it’s smaller and the screen is better.

Ella: So it’s more advanced than the Fire, too? It’s smaller than the Fire.

Kenny: Smaller doesn’t always mean more advanced. Here, let’s talk about these other two. They should be easier. This one has little physical buttons to enter words. With this one, I touch the screen and bring up these letters on the screen to enter words. Which one do you think is called the Kindle Touch?

Ella: The one with the buttons.

Kenny: The one with…why would you think that?

Ella: That one has buttons I can touch and feel. The other one just has pictures of buttons. I can’t really feel anything there, so the one with the physical buttons must be the Touch.

Kenny: That’s not right. With this one you can touch the screen.

Ella: I can touch the screen on the one with the buttons.

Kenny: Yes, but that won’t do anything.

Ella: It will leave fingerprints…that’s something. Don’t I touch the buttons on the other one?

Kenny: Yes, but that’s not a touch screen.

Ella: So we only call it a Touch Kindle when you touch the screen? So only the screen is called the Kindle?

Kenny: No. The whole thing is the Kindle.

Ella: But it’s not the 2007 Kindle.

Kenny: Now you have it.

Ella: I may have it, but I don’t know what it is. Show me again how you type words on the one without the buttons?

Kenny: I touch here, and that brings up the keyboard, and then I type on those letters.

Ella: Okay, and that one is the Touch. What’s the one with the buttons called?

Kenny: The Kindle Keyboard.

Ella: Didn’t you just tell me that you use a keyboard on the Kindle Touch?

Kenny: That’s a virtual keyboard.

Ella: So, they both have keyboards, but the one that has buttons I can touch is called the Kindle Keyboard, and the one that just has pictures of the buttons is called the Touch?

Kenny: That’s it.

Ella: I need a break. Give me one of those. I’m going to go over to this nook and read for a while.

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This entry was posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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It was the goofy names of the Kindles that inspired me…that, and a fondness for old Abbott and Costello routines. ;) Ella is named after Lou Costello (it just sort of sounds alike). Hmmm…25 trivia points if anybody knows why the instructor is named Kenny. Trivia points are just for pride, and are null and void if you look it up…you just have to know.

When I was a brick-and-mortar retail manager, product knowledge was important. I suggested that my employees in the bookstore read one book in each section. We had a lot of fun when I ran a gamestore….and we did regular game nights to get familiar with them. :)